What Becomes of the Brokenhearted
by TigerButterflied
Summary: One by one, each CSI looks back and tells a tale of heartbreak. Something a little different. Not sure what to call it.
1. Chapter 1

What Becomes of the Brokenhearted 

Hi! Me again, posting something weird. This is experimental. It's really different from anything I've ever written. It's about life's heartbreaks, sort of a scrapbook of lost loves. You might like it, you might not. Each chapter will focus on a different character and his or her history.

Haven't forgotten about my other stuff; just taking a break and changing gears for a bit here...

Ch.1

Grissom

Her name was Anna, and she was the first woman to really look AT me. I'm a strange, drab man, and when I was in college I was a strange, drab boy. The girls around campus would look past me, over me, around me, and through me, but none of them ever really looked, ever really saw - until Anna, that is.

The year was 1977, and I was twenty years old. Even then the insects were my passion. I would watch, transfixed, as they hatched, grew, metamorphasized, and procreated. They were so predictable, so certain, never any surprises from them. I could say with complete confidence what they would and wouldn't do, and I would always be right, because insects can never decieve, never sway from their destiny - never pretend to be anything but what they are.

Humans, on the other hand, have always been a different story. By the time I entered college I knew what I was and what my limitations meant. I had made peace with the profound neurological deficit that shackled my emotions but ironically left my intellect untouched. In my mind I knew that there would never be a mate for me, never a family to surround and offer comfort or a lover to wrap her arms around me in the night. I might experience sex, feel love, but my emotional aphasia so hobbled my ability to express my feelings and allow closeness that anything deeper than a passing affair was extremely unlikely. I was content with my life, never terribly happy, never terribly sad, merely content in the orderly, predictible world of bugs I had immersed myself in.

Then Anna walked through the door of the entomology lab and looked straight at me, commanding eye contact. I gave it to her. She was well over six feet tall, her stance strong and confident, her smile an erotic caress. She held my gaze as she slunk over to the table where I sat, bent over close and held out her hand. "Hello," she said slowly. "I'm Dr. Anna Bruce. I'm visiting from the endocrinology lab on the other side of campus. And you are..."

"Gil. Gil Grissom." I took her hand gingerly.

"It's nice to meet you, Gil Grissom. You have the loveliest blue eyes I've ever seen." And with that , she slipped out of my grasp and out of the room.

A week later I saw her again. I was in the cafeteria, alone with my lunch as always, reading the paper as I ate. I hadn't realized anyone was there until she was already seated across from me. She neatly plucked the paper from my grasp, folded it and placed it beside her. "Hello," she said with a smile.

"Hello, uh, Dr. Bruce."

She shook her head. "Please. Anna. I'm not THAT much older than you, and I'm not likely to ever become your professor." She looked me over with curiosity. "So you're a junior. What's your major?"

"Entomology." I swallowed hard against the rush of something I'd never felt before.

She smiled. "So you're transfixed by bugs, are you."

I nodded. "They're fascinating."

She nodded encouragement. "Tell me why..."

In short order we were taking lunch together every day. She began inviting me to her apartment for dinner, for dessert, for a game of chess - then, finally, to make love. I fell in love with her. Even though I knew she was too good for me I couldn't stop it from happening, couldn't help myself. For her part she was gentle with me, never asking for more than I could give, never judging me for what I could never be. I couldn't tell her what I was feeling, couldn't know how to put to words the delicate sweetness she had given me, but when the dark blossom of night closed her hand around us I would try with my body to make her understand. Sometimes I think she did.

I never knew she was sick until the night she called from the hospital. "Gil," she whispered softly, "I need to see you."

She had cardiomyopathy, I found out later; she'd had it long before we met. She'd always been pale, but looking at her with lover's eyes I'd simply thought her skin was as alabaster. I didn't understand she was sick, didn't realize she was dying. I saw what I wanted to see - a lovely, gentle woman who accepted me as I was, cared for me despite my inability to show her the depth of my devotion. That night, I slept in a chair beside her bed, held her cold, pale hand in my own, watched as hot tears splashed onto her cool flesh. "I - I - I - "

"I know," she whispered, her voice faint. "I always knew. I love you too."

I cried then like I'd never cried before, like I will never cry again, great, wracking sobs rolling through me as I mourned what was to come - all the long, cold nights filled with her absence, the days of seeing her face out of the corner of my eye only to turn and realize it was only a trick of the mind. All the while I clutched her hand, cool and pale as a lily, never letting go even as night became morning. After a while the nurse slipped in and checked her, then put an antiseptic hand on my shoulder. "She's gone," she said gently. "I'm sorry. She's gone."

There are heartbreaks, then there are heart removals. Anna took my heart with her 28 years ago; I gave it to her and she never let go. And that's okay, really. I was lucky enough to have a great love in my life, something most people never know.  
In truth I'm clutching her hand yet, just waiting for that day she tugs on it and pulls me back into her arms.


	2. Chapter 2

Here's ch 2. PG13 for rude language - not likely to be anything you've never heard before. 

ch. 2

Catherine

I was a cheerleader in high school, one of those reigning princesses who never have to worry about other peoples' feelings. I usually wasn't terribly mean, just oblivious and more than a tiny bit spoiled - after all, I was Sam Braun's golden girl. Then I graduated, and things changed.

I liked to party - always had, from that night in seventh grade when Bonnie Harper stuck a glass of green Boone's Farm in my hand and told me to drink it. I liked alcohol especially. Pot was okay, but give me a bottle of tequila and I was a happy girl, until the next morning at least. Anyhow, I partied on weekends all the way through school, graduated, and got a job dancing at one of Sam's clubs.

It was fun. I'd been hit on from the time my boobs were like mosquito bites, but this, THIS was powerful. I danced for them, looked them in the eye, and knew any one of them would hack off his arm to fuck me - well, okay, a finger then, but you get the point. I had power like I'd never, ever felt, and it intoxicated me. I had stepped into a dangerous realm of sexuality and didn't even know it. I thought that because I could grab a man by his libido, manipulate him sexually so thoroughly that he would do anything to have more of me, even tuck his entire paycheck in my G-string, I thought that meant I was the one in control. It was a potent illusion, and the cocaine that flowed freely everywhere I went only served to strengthen it. I picked my lovers from the clientele like a farmer taking the best apples for himself. I traded in the old for the new when I got bored - after all, they were all the same for me - only the faces ever changed. I had a type - rich, handsome, arrogant, disposable. Over the next decade I managed to go through more men than I care to think about.

Then I met Eddie Willows. He fit my "type" in a lot of respects - sexy, charming, dangerous - but something about him was different. I don't know if it was his intelligence, his impetuous sense of adventure, or the fact that he could manipulate just as well as I could but something about him touched a chord in me, and I was hooked. He moved into my apartment, into my bed, into my heart.

We were happy the first couple of years. He hated what I did, but he never was able to keep a job, and the bills were still there even when he was unemployed. I began to hate stripping. I'd given up the coke and the pot, and I rarely even drank any more, so giving some stranger a raging hardon and knowing he'd think of me when he masturbated in the parking lot stopped being a rush for me. I realized I wasn't in control - I was being used, something I despised above all else. I resolved to change. I began going to college in the daytime, dancing at night. As classes progressed I came to understand that my looks were not my best feature - my mind was. I slowly stopped defining myself based on my sexuality and began looking inward, self-searching.

Eddie did not handle it well at all. I was rarely home, and when I was my new attitude rubbed him the wrong way. He started staying out all night, sometimes for days at a time. I'd suspected he'd had affairs in the past, even caught him kissing girls a time or two, but this bold display was something new.

It all came to a head right before I found out I was pregnant with Lindsey. I found a hot pink jewelled thong in my bed, and it wasn't mine. I was furious, packed Eddie's things, then waited for him to come home. When he did I kicked his useless ass out of my house.

A week later I took a home pregnancy test. One plus sign later I called Eddie and he came over. We shared dinner and tears, and he proposed. He said things would be different after we got married, and I wanted to believe him. I never had a full-time father, and I wanted so badly for my child's life not to be a repeat of my own childhood. We got married, and a month later I graduated and got on at the lab.

Well, Eddie told the truth in a sense - things WERE different after we got married. For one, he moved from cursing me to slapping me across the face. For another, he stopped having sex with me. My growing belly was a turnoff, he said over his shoulder as he slipped out the door - never mind that in that belly was HIS child. I bought little clothes alone, put together nursery furniture with Grissom, and dragged my mother to LaMaze. Nevertheless, when Eddie came to the hospital the morning after Lindsey was born you'd have thought he'd birthed her himself.

His immediate adoration of our child bought him five more years of marriage. It wasn't a HAPPY marriage, more an exercise in barely tolerating one another, but we had Lindsey between us and we both tried our best to keep it together. He was even gracious enough to start screwing me again. Several years passed, and my suspicions that he was back to his old tricks mounted. So did the frequency of physical abuse. Around the time Lindsey turned four I came home early to find my dear husband having sex with the babysitter I was paying to take care of my daughter.

That was the end for me. I kicked him out, got a lawyer, started divorce proceedings. It was hard, but I got through it. My mother was there for me emotionally, and Grissom was there with practical help - new deadlocks, time off, a restraining order. My heart was broken, but I had too much going on to stop and worry about that. Life went on. Then Eddie managed to get himself murdered.

When Eddie died I cried, both for my now-fatherless child and for the man I'd shared so many years of my life with. I'd still loved him, but it had been a sad kind of love, one tinged with the awareness that we could never be together. He'd taken apart our marriage with his own hands. He took apart his own life with his choices.


	3. Chapter 3

This is chapter 3. For me Warrick has got to be the hardest of all to "get" because for all his boldness he plays his cards very close to his chest. In many respects he is very hard to understand. I have always been interested in the fact that he bends over backwards to help preteen and teen kids in trouble. This weaves in one possible explanation as to why. Understand that I am not getting political here, merely telling my version of one man's story and how it affects his life from that point after that. 

ch 3

Warrick

Growing up an orphan is never easy, even when you're blessed with a grandmother who raises you like her own. Being biracial is also no picnic. Add to that being a nerd in a rough neighborhood and you have a childhood that leaves you with the nagging feeling that you don't really fit anywhere. When I finally escaped from high school I had a 3.97 average and a full academic scholarship at LVU, but I still carried with me the pervasive sense of otherness I'd worn my whole life.

I met Karen at the start of my senior year of high school. She sat beside me in one class, behind me in another. She was pretty. Not showgirl-pretty, but that natural, girl-next-door loveliness that doesn't have to rely on cosmetics. Her hair was pale blonde, reaching past her shoulders, and her blue eyes sparkled when she smiled. She smiled at me often. It was like she was looking through the thick glasses and dorky clothes and gawkiness and seeing something inside me that was worthwhile. I was utterly smitten. I became her friend, her study partner, and later her man.

I was guileless back then, having never been burned, so I fell into love eagerly, with my whole heart. In my mind she was the most amazing woman ever born. She said she loved me too, that she didn't care about the fact that I was black and she was white, but her parents would never let us be together. I didn't like it, but we snuck around, playing the "we're just friends going to the library" card with Mom and Dad. Later she started telling them she was staying at her friend's house. She was staying with a friend, alright. My Grandma would whip me today if she know how many nights Karen snuck through my window and slept in my bed. Other times we'd drive out to our favorite makeout spot and make love in the back of my old car. Afterwards we'd hold each other close and plan our future - we'd go to college, get an apartment together, stop hiding us. When we talked about it it seemed so real, and I began to look forward to the day I could be more than her dirty little secret.

The year wore on, and at last we graduated. We both were accepted by LVU, and I managed to find a tiny apartment within walking distance of campus. I had been working since I was 15, so I put down the deposits and the first month's rent and moved in my bed and chest of drawers, thirteen inch television set, linens, and some dishes and pots my grandmother found at a yard sale. Karen brought a sofa that her friend's mother was getting rid of, a ratty recliner from her bedroom, and a card table with two chairs for our dining room set. With the help of my cousin and his truck, we went from new graduates to a living-together couple in three easy trips. We hit the thrift shop for a lamp and curtains and our little studio apartment became home.

I had never been so happy in my entire life. In Karen's arms I fit perfectly. She never needed to figure out a label for me - to her I was just Warrick, the man she loved. I found the respect in college that I'd too often lacked in my earlier life. I was smart, and the people around me liked that. Even better, they weren't so concerned about classifying me, figuring out "what" I was. I made friends, and Karen and I finally got to socialize as a couple. We belonged.

The first two years of college passed quickly for us. Both of us had part-time jobs, and keeping our grades up took a lot of our time. We made time to be together, but often that time was short. Still, we had each other, and that was everything - well, to me it was.

End of my second year of school she dropped the mother of all bombshells on me: she was pregnant. I was stunned - hell, what twenty-year-old college student wouldn't be? - but a few days later I was excited, happy, ready to deal with the situation. I told her we needed to get her to an obstetrician, needed to get a crib, needed to get MARRIED, but she cut me off. No, she said quietly. No obstetrician, no crib, no wedding. She had an appointment the next week.

An APPOINTMENT. This was mine, too, but she'd decided without even asking me. This child, this wonderful blend of the two of us conceived in love in our own safe home, in our own warm bed, this child would never be. I would never know if his eyes would be green or blue, his skin light or dark, his smile bold or shy. I begged, I who had never begged anyone for anything in all my 20 years pleaded with her, tears running down my cheeks, just to reconsider. No, she said firmly, turning away, her eyes dry. She didn't want it. She didn't want it, she didn't even want ME any more. She wanted to be free.

She kept her appointment, and that afternoon I came home to a note explaining that she wouldn't be back. I saw her on campus some after that, but we never talked. I learned after our breakup that she'd moved out of our place and into the house of a guy from her chemistry class. They'd been seeing each other for months, and I'd never even suspected.

I had more than my heart broken my twentieth year - my trust was fractured as well, perhaps beyond repair. Sometimes I think I've lost the ability to let a woman close. I lost something else as well, or maybe not . I can only tell you that sometimes in my dreams there's a little boy with aqua eyes and toffee skin, and he's laughing as he runs across a meadow. I run after him, but I can't catch him. I get closer, closer, wrap my arms around him, but my arms feel empty and I look and I'm holding just air. I think that's my mind's way of telling me the sweetest dreams can vaporize, just like that, so you can't put any faith in them. I want to, though. You don't know how damn badly I want to.


	4. Chapter 4

Broken

Yet another installment for ya. This one is a portrait painted with hues of regret. .

ch4 Nick

The most excrutiating heartbreak is the one you bring on yourself. I should know. For the last ten years I've been living with the consequences of my own actions. The most painful part has been lying in my lonely bed night after night wrapped in her absence and in the knowledge that she would be here in my life and in my arms if I hadn't broken HER heart.

I met Lori Turner in March of 1993. I'd just started working at the Dallas Crime Lab, and she was the DNA tech on night shift. We hit it off immediately, and soon we were having lunch together nearly every night. She was beautiful, with auburn curls, golden brown eyes, and a smile that took my breath away. She was smart, funny, and kind to a fault. She fostered stray dogs, volunteered at the homeless shelter, and practiced more random acts of kindness than anyone I had ever met.

We started dating, and very soon I'd fallen hard for her. At 22 I'd never been in love before. I'd slept with more girls than I could count, but none had ever touched my heart, let alone stolen it like she did. It was scary and wonderful at the same time. She returned my affections, and soon we were hot and heavy. One year after we met I asked Lori to marry me, and she said yes. We set the date for six months after that and began planning our future together. Life was good.

Then I did something I will forever regret. Three months before the wedding, some of my old frat brothers were in town, so I took them out to Brodie's at the Hilton, the hotel where they were staying. I got myself a room as well, because I knew we'd be getting drunk. Yeah. Well, we ran into these girls. One thing led to another, and when I woke up I was naked, and I wasn't alone.

I felt horrible for what I'd done, but I had no intention of telling Lori. After all, what's done is done, and I wasn't going to lose her over something I'd never even intended to do. Unfortunately I didn't HAVE to tell her. Her sister's best friend was one of the girls we ran into, and the very first thing she did after she found out was call Lori and tell her what had happened. I didn't know that until the next night at work.

Guilt flowed over me as I approached the DNA lab. I'd screwed around on the woman who would be my wife in less than 3 months, and I couldn't tell her or I'd lose everything. I had to act normal. My everything hinged on her never finding out.

She was leaning over one of the machines as I slipped into the lab behind her. "Hey, babe," I said, trying to keep the edge out of my voice. "What's going on?"

I knew she knew when I saw her eyes. Puffy and red and bloodshot, they obviously belonged to someone who had been doing a lot of crying. She just shook her head and silently thrust the engagement ring I'd given her into my hand. "Go," she grated.

"What?"

"You KNOW what. Drop the bullshit. We have nothing to talk about."

"Lori..."

"Leave."

"I didn't mean for..."

"Bullshit. I'm sure she's not the first, just the only one your sneaky ass got caught with. Get out NOW. I have work to do."

"But..."

"We're at work. You're distracting me. Leave, or I call the boss and tell him you're harassing me." She picked up the telephone. "I swear I'll do it."

"Okay. Right. Okay, we'll talk after work. I love you, Lori, and I'm not going to lose you over this."

"That's where you're wrong, Nick. You already have. Bye."

She wouldn't talk to me after work either, and she wouldn't answer the telephone when I called. She told me the next day that if I tried to talk to her about anything not work-related she'd file a complaint on me. The next day, she did just that. Days turned into weeks, and then one day she was gone. Moved to DC.

Weeks became months. A year and a half after she left I flew out to DC to see her. A man answered the door. "Uh, hi," I sputtered. "I'm here to see Lori." He raised his eyebrows and walked away. In a few moments she came to the door. On her left ring finger was a thick gold band. I just stared at it.

"You shouldn't have come," she said softly. "I left Dallas to get away from you. You broke my heart."

"You broke mine, too."

She shook hers. "That's where you're wrong. You broke your own heart with your deceit. I loved you. I was good to you, and you thought so little of me you took some woman you'd just met to bed less than three months before our wedding. That's not love, Nick. That's horrible, and you're not even man enough to take responsibility for it."

I felt hot tears of shame gather in my eyes. "Look," I whispered, "I know it's too late; you're married now. I still need to tell you, to tell you I did love you, I do love you, and I'm sorry every damned day for what I did. If you ever, if you ever need me, need me for anything you just call me and I'll be there for you. I love you, Lori, and there will never be a day when I don't love you. Don't forget that."

Her husband appeared behind her and put his hand on her shoulder. "I have to go, Nick. You take care, now." The door creaked shut in my face.

As I walked away I realized she was right. I really had broken my own heart. 


	5. Chapter 5

Posting another chapter as I want to get this all up. This one might be a bit disturbing. 

Sara's Story

My problem is bigger than one single heartbreak. My FIRST heartbreak occurred when I was ten, and since that awful night every man I've ever cared about has managed to add a new break - well, all but one, but that situation hasn't really developed yet. But you're wanting to know details, aren't you? I mean, it isn't every day you meet a woman who has more breaks than undamaged heart.

From my very first memories I can recall fearing my father's anger, his disapproval. Mom was warm, nurturing, approachable, but even she would cower before the onslaught of Daddy's rage. He was never physical with me, but he beat the crap out of my mother on a regular basis. She was a tall, strong woman, assertive with everyone else, but he never failed to bring her to tears. Afterward he would morph into a different man. His guilt somehow gentled him, made him more loving than he ever was when he was "normal." He'd hold her then, tell her he was sorry, whisper how much he loved her, beg her plaintively not to leave him. The next morning he'd be as cold and silent as ever. Sometimes I think she saw the beatings as the price she had to pay for a little love - but as is usually the case the price went up over the years, and finally she saw that she couldn't keep buying.

The year I turned nine was when she started having to go to the hospital after the fights. The first time he broke a rib, but as time passed it escalated - broken arm, facial fractures, long, deep cuts from a broken wine bottle - and by the time I turned ten it became clear he was going to eventually kill her. That was when she started carrying the knife around with her.

It all happened really fast. I heard a crashing noise, and I ran into the dining room to see my Daddy with his hands around Mom's neck, saw her try to pull away, saw her hand lower to pull the knife from her pocket. A flurry of motion turned red and she was breathing again, gasping and rubbing her throat as she scrambled away from him. She didn't have to, really; his attention was on the hole in his belly, the one that had turned him into a screaming blood fountain spilling all over the floor, turning the cheery yellow linoleum a dead serious scarlet.

He was dead by the time EMS arrived, and Mom was carted off to the nuthouse, where she remained for many years after that. My brother and I were swept into foster care. His new family at least cared about him - kept him until he graduated - but I went from foster to foster. I was shattered, having lost every single person who loved me, though no one seemed to care or really even notice. Every now and then they'd take me to visit Mom, but she wasn't Mom any more. Heavily sedated and unresponsive, I really don't think she knew I was there at that point. I KNOW she wasn't.

Time passed. I became an A student, as much for the teacher's approval and affection as for the rewards excelling bought me, and I graduated a year early with a full scholarship to Harvard. I dropped into academia just another bright, mousy science nerd in a sea of shining minds. The competition was intense, something I'd never before experienced, and I had to work harder than I ever had just to keep my scholarship. Things were verydifferent from high school, and I loved it.

I loved the unfamiliar male attention I seemed to be attracting, too. The first three months of my freshman year I had more dates than I'd had in my whole life up to that point. Nothing serious, but I was having FUN for the first time in years. Then I met John, and everything changed.

John was a doctoral graduate student. He was handsome and articulate and charming - and he was thirty-three years old. I met him in the campus library late one night, and we talked until dawn on the steps of my dorm after he walked me home.

We saw each other every day after that. He swept me off my feet with attention. He took me to dinner at nice restaurants, bought me clothes, had my hair done by an expensive local stylist. Like a modern-day Eliza Doolittle I was molded and transformed, my youthful heart eagerly following his guidance. I gave him my heart, my time, my will, and eventually my virginity. In return he moved me into his apartment, and I remained there until the end of my junior year, when he matter-of-factly replaced me with his new "project."

Back in the dorm I realized just how totally I had changed to meet John's requirements. After two years of living as the woman he wanted me to be I wasn't even sure who the real me was any more. I started drinking, smoking pot, and hanging out with a wild crowd. That I managed to keep my grades up was amazing. That I avoided getting myself killed was a miracle.

After graduation I got my first job at the Seattle Crime Lab. A few years later I got a better offer in San Francisco, where I met Gil Grissom. At his request I relocated to Vegas, which is where can you find me today.

I know who I am again now. Time has strengthened me, made me cautious and hesitant. I'm not so vulnerable and trusting as I once was, nor am I as willing to change to make others happy. My heart has been broken several times since I gave myself over to John, but I've never again lost myself, my control, or my basic identity. I only wish my mother had held on to hers.


	6. Chapter 6

There are many different kinds of loves, and they all are precious. Read to the finish and you'll understand. This chapter is in memory of someone dear to me. 

Chapter 6

Greg

My worst heartbreak was nothing you'd expect of me. It still hurts when I think about what happened, the wrenching memory twisting in my gut until I find myself in tears yet again. Love doesn't turn itself off when the loved one dies. It lives forever.

It just wasn't fair, not fair at all. I cried myself to sleep that day, then got up out of my cold, lonely bed that night and drug myself to work. When the others asked me what was wrong I told them I was fine, just had a headache. It's not like any of them would've understood. No, what we shared was private, just between us, and my grief would be the same.

His name was Luke, and though it all happened a few years ago, I still have his picture in a magnetic frame inside my locker. I have a second, larger photo in a silver frame beside my bed, right next to his pillow. He's smiling a little in that one, his clear blue eyes trained on some long-forgotten thing behind me. That one was taken about two months before I lost him. The one on the dresser was taken earlier, just a couple of weeks after we met. He was so young then. I already loved him at that point, enough so that I was already sharing my bed with him - of course, he really didn't give me a lot of choice in the matter. I came out of the shower one morning after work, and there he was waiting for me. He slept there with me every day after that. He was the heart and soul of unconditional love, the only creature devoted enough to willfully brave my snoring just to be close to me - but that was Luke for you. He slept in my arms on cold nights, next to me on warm ones. I still miss being able to pull him close and rub my cheek against his. He always smelled so good.

He died tragically seven months after we met. He'd had an ongoing eye problem, then one morning I noticed him staggering as he made his way to the kitchen. I took him to the doctor, and the news was devastating. He had encephalitis, the result of FIP, a nasty, invariably fatal viral illness. They could treat the symptoms, maybe buy him a modest improvement, maybe a little time, but there was no cure. My best friend was going to die, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. They gave me a little green bottle of medicine and a syringe, then sent us home.

I held him in my arms and rocked him that night, buried my face in his sweet-smelling fur. He purred as loudly as ever, untroubled by the tears dampening his neck. The next morning he was staggering all over the place, and he wouldn't eat. Each morning after that he slipped further downhill. By the end of the week he had stopped eating or drinking, and he could no longer walk well enough to make it to his litter box. A few days later he was utterly miserable, and he could no longer even hold his head up. I made the hardest decision of my life that day and set him free from a body that no longer worked. Losing him hurt me like no lover ever had, but I owed him a comfortable journey. After all, he would've done the same for me. I know he would have.

This is in memory of the real Luke, a beloved and special soul who just crossed that Rainbow Bridge day before yesterday. He was so young, and the illness that took him was terrible. It's just not fair.


End file.
